---
title: "Which came first, Facebook or YouTube?"
description: "Facebook vs YouTube: Facebook came first, by one year — 2004 against 2005. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/facebook-vs-youtube/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, Facebook or YouTube?

**Which came first, Facebook or YouTube?: Facebook**

2004 — one year before YouTube

Facebook came first, by one year. TheFacebook launched for Harvard students only.

## Side by side

|  | Facebook | YouTube |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 2004 | 2005 |
| Date | 2004-02-04 | 2005-02-14 |
| Category | technology | technology |
| What happened | TheFacebook launched for Harvard students only. | The domain was registered; the first video followed in April. |

## Facebook

Facebook launched on 4 February 2004 restricted to Harvard email addresses, opened to other universities through 2004 and 2005, and to anyone over 13 with an email address in September 2006. It is six years younger than Google and a year older than YouTube. Its predecessor Facemash, which compared students' photographs, was shut down by the university within days in 2003.

## YouTube

The youtube.com domain was registered on Valentine's Day 2005, the first video — "Me at the zoo", 19 seconds of a co-founder at San Diego Zoo — was uploaded on 23 April, and the site opened publicly in the winter. Google bought it in November 2006 for $1.65 billion, about twenty months after the domain was registered. It is younger than Facebook by a year and older than Twitter by one.

## Common questions

### Which came first, Facebook or YouTube?

Facebook, by one year — 2004 against 2005.

### When did Facebook start?

2004. TheFacebook launched for Harvard students only.

### When did YouTube start?

2005. The domain was registered; the first video followed in April.

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## Sources

- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]